


Another Sun Will Rise

by PhantomEngineer



Series: God of Stories [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 11:08:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: The branches of Yggdrasil revealed themselves to him, opening and allowing him passage. He was Loki, there was nothing he couldn’t do. Magic unfurled about him, drawing him through the realms of impossibility back to life and Thor. He opened his eyes, renewed and reborn, his body younger than it had been but still his. Still immortal and divine, a jötunn wearing æsir skin.After a brief sojourn in a world in which he was nothing more than a mortal Midgardian but one happily married to Thor, Loki returns once again to Thor's side where they are gods amongst men.





	Another Sun Will Rise

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the MCU. After Infinity War at the very least. No idea how it ties in with Endgame.

The branches of Yggdrasil revealed themselves to him, opening and allowing him passage. He was Loki, there was nothing he couldn’t do. Magic unfurled about him, drawing him through the realms of impossibility back to life and Thor. He opened his eyes, renewed and reborn, his body younger than it had been but still his. Still immortal and divine, a jötunn wearing æsir skin.

He recognised the room, even though it was dark. More than that, he recognised the reassuring sound of gentle snores, like a soft summer storm. He didn’t know how much time had passed since his death at Thanos’s hands, but he knew that Thor lived. That Thor was there, safely asleep in his bed in Avengers’ Tower. If Thanos still lived, it didn’t matter, as they would deal with him together. Or maybe Thor had killed him in the interim. Loki had no interest in wondering about Thanos, had no interest in anyone who wasn’t Thor.

His Thor.

Tears blurred his vision for a moment, a stupid sentimental response. Grief, to an extent. Grief for the life he had briefly visited and left, leaving the other version of him safe with his own Thor. Grief at the missed chances and wasted time that lay between him and his brother, the alternative options where maybe they hadn’t been brothers or enemies. And at the same time, hope. Fragile hope so precarious that Loki wanted to turn tail and flee, leave himself dead in Thor’s mind and hide from the truth, but at the same time he had to face it. Had to face the reality that maybe Thor would love him back as another Thor in another reality had loved a different Loki, because even if they were different they were also the same. Still Loki. And if Loki was just Loki then Thor might be always, eternally, Thor.

He was torn. Torn between listening to Thor’s snores for the rest of eternity, delaying the moment, and roughly shaking him awake to a garbled confession of honest truths. He hovered there, hesitating, and came to a decision. He thought of warm mugs of tea brought to his bedside. Wrapping himself in magic, he slipped from the room to the kitchen, knowing his way round the tower when he probably shouldn’t have. An issue that Loki felt no guilt over, categorising it as somebody else’s problem, to be dealt with in the future if it should come to that. 

He doubted that it was the best cup of coffee that had ever been made, but he imagined that it would do. Thor didn’t ever seem to have strong preferences one way or another, and the intention at least was good. He thought that that would outweigh any other issues that might exist with his limited ability to brew coffee. Maybe he would learn, one day. More likely he wouldn’t. It wasn’t truly in his nature. He would rather laze in bed having steaming mugs delivered to him, but this was an exception. A special occasion. A deviation from the norm. 

Quietly, he returned to Thor’s side, setting the steaming mug down on the bedside table with a gentle spell to ensure that it remained hot. He sat down on the bed beside Thor’s sleeping form, softly enough that he didn’t wake him even though that was ultimately the aim. Cautiously, his hand trembling in a way it hadn’t for a long time, nervous and uncertain, he reach out to stroke through Thor’s hair. It was still short from Sakaar, maybe because he had decided to keep it that way or maybe because Ragnarok was still a recent event.

“Thor,” he whispered.

Thor’s eyes flickered open. Not the same as the Thor whose eyes he had gazed into in the other reality, or even the same eyes he had gazed into as a child. Not the same as the Thor he had left, where one eye had been covered by a patch that hid the gaping hole of what remained. An injury that couldn’t be healed even with Loki’s power, not when the wound was caused by the goddess of death. Loki looked into one blue and one brown eye, the change taking him by surprise.

“I’m sorry,” Loki whispered, the tears returning unbidden to blur his vision when he wanted to soak in the sight of Thor’s face. His Thor, who had weathered harsh battles and been forced to fight against his own brother and sister. His Thor, who he had grown up with. His Thor, who he loved desperately. 

Thor blinked up at him, the hand on his cheek solidly proving that Loki was real. Pain and relief went to war across his face, the agony of yet another betrayal, yet another faked death, pitting itself against the relief that it was not a true death, that Loki had returned again as he always did. Loki could see the question in his eyes, the blue he had known all his life and the brown that was new and told of Thor’s adventures since his death. A new eye to give him back his restricted vision, to allow for depth perception on the battlefield. A wise choice that Odin in his wisdom had never contemplated.

“I made you coffee,” Loki said weakly, gesturing to the mug.

Thor gave him a baffled look, as though he couldn’t comprehend the idea of Loki performing an altruistic act. Wary of the slightest hint of kindness or consideration as they always hid tricks. As though the only reason Loki might make coffee was to add salt instead of sugar, to poison with something that could be deadly or inconvenient, to deny Thor the simple pleasure of drinking it by any means possible. 

“It’s just coffee,” Loki added. “Because you like coffee. That’s all.” It wasn’t really. It was something more. Something symbolic. And at the same time, it was just coffee. A cup made to be given as a peace offering, a declaration of a truce, a signing of a pact. Another thing taken by Loki without asking permission but for once for someone not himself. 

Hesitantly, Thor reached out for the coffee, sniffing it suspiciously before sipping cautiously. Nothing happened, except for him gagging ever so slightly. Loki did not make good coffee, even if it wasn’t actively poisonous or enchanted. He put it back down on the bedside table, looking at Loki again with confusion.

Loki pushed him, acknowledging that the coffee was likely not going to be drunk, forcing Thor to shift over enough that Loki could slip under the covers, letting his armour switch to that of simple pyjamas. Thor regarded him with uncertainty, as though the snake he had once loved had turned out to be a poisonous viper that bit him again and again. Loki hated to have put that reaction into Thor’s soft heart, hated the cracks he had helped to put in between them when once upon a time they had lain together as children, innocently dreaming of happy futures. When in another reality they slept side by side every night in a relationship Loki longed to have the chance to recreate.

“I didn’t mean to make you grieve me again,” he said quietly, trying to break the habit of centuries and aiming for honesty. It didn’t come naturally to him, but for Thor he would try. “I didn’t mean to leave you. I just wanted to save you from him.”

The accusation in the brown eye was as damning as the accusation in the blue eye. The newness of it didn’t lessen the blow just as the fact that Loki had seen those looks from Thor’s blue eyes too many times. The hurt, the sad acceptance that the trust they had once had was gone, the betrayal of a faked death so soon after their reconciliation. The scene of Loki’s death, Thanos’s hand around his throat, losing its fatality with his return, so clearly not dead.

“It wasn’t intentional,” Loki tried again, “And it wasn’t fake. I did really die, there was just a loop hole. I slipped through the branches of Yggdrasil temporarily, only not the usual ones. Thor… Do you not ever wonder if there aren’t other universes and other realities? Because that’s where I was, just for a brief while, in a reality where we were nothing but mortal Midgardians. No magic, no powers, just brief lifespans living out our little lives.”

“You must have hated that,” Thor said, finally speaking. Breaking his silence with a heavy tone but still amused at the idea of Loki amongst mortal Midgardians, stripped of his powers. Brought down to Earth as Thor had been, what seemed like such a very long time ago. 

Loki looked back at him levelly. He had disliked the loss of his magic, but not in the way he might have done had it been in this world where magic and technology were different. Magic, it appeared, he could live without when in a world where there was no need for it. Thor, however, was a different matter. “Not really,” he answered honestly, “It was a good life. Part of me wished to stay. Part of me wanted to return to your side.”

Thor frowned, as though surprised by Loki’s answer. “What was it like?” he asked.

Loki swallowed, hesitating. He had the option of lying, still. Of hiding away and leaving everything the way it was. Of letting them rebuild the relationship they had had, of returning to be brothers like they once were. Or he could smash it as though he were the one to wield a hammer or axe rather than Thor. Destroy everything with the truth of their other selves and his longing heart. “I woke up in bed beside you,” he said slowly and softly, “Beside a mortal Thor who was my husband not my brother.”

Thor’s expression was frozen, as though conflicted. Uncertain and lost. As though he was wary of every word Loki had to say, the lesson of distrust learnt too well to believe easily. At the same time, there was a hint of something hurt hidden away, a longing that was forbidden. A degree of betrayal even, as though tensing for a cruel punchline, expecting laughter and mocking.

“I don’t know quite why it was there,” Loki continued softly, “Maybe it was just chance. I guess I needed somewhere to go to avoid ending up truly dead, but I couldn’t linger here without a body and spells like that even when set in motion do take time. So I borrowed an alternative me’s body for a while, and lived a few days of his life.”

“As husbands…” Thor murmured, his voice cracking slightly. He swallowed, as thought there were millions of questions and no answers he could possibly trust. “Did you… Did you…” There was a pause, uncertain and uncomfortable and then Thor asked, “Did you leave them unharmed?” in a rush that suggested it wasn’t his first question. 

“Yes,” Loki answered shortly. He tried to ignore the hurt of the question, the lack of faith in his goodness as he had given Thor little proof of it in recent years. He lay there for a while, looking into Thor’s eyes in a way he had only the other night, only those eyes had belonged to a different Thor. Those eyes had been filled with love, open and unrestrained. The Thor before him was conflicted and hurt, pain and fear being suppressed but still managing to slip through the cracks in his façade.

Loki swallowed. Slowly but resolutely, he ground out some of the hardest words he’d ever said. “If you want, I can just leave. Remain dead as far as everyone is concerned, go far away and never again darken your doorway. Leave you and your precious Midgardians alone.”

Thor’s hand went out to grasp at his wrist without any seeming conscious thought, clutching at him and clinging on, helping to provide an answer. Loki didn’t really know what he’d do if Thor did ask that of him, knew that he was simply gambling everything on his certainty that Thor would never let him go again. That this would not be the last time he lay beside Thor in a bed made for two. He supposed he could go find a planet to subjugate, but really he imagined that would be too much effort. More likely he would seek out a planet without intelligent life, one populated by cute fluffy things without thought that he could pet in comfort as he lost himself in illusions were he could lie in Thor’s arms every night. The kind of place where he would never be found. Would never have to face reality again.

“Or I could try and fold myself back into the role of being your brother,” Loki continued painfully, “Even though I can’t change my feelings now that I’ve loved you as a lover, I’ve lied about too much for too long. Or…” He left it there, trailing off to leave the choice to Thor.

Thor looked pained as he spoke and at the same time he seemed desperate. “Loki, if you are lying then this is the cruelest trick you have ever played on me.”

“I’m not,” Loki said firmly. “I love you. Even if I hid it even from myself, I’ve loved you a long time.”

Thor reached out a hand, calloused from wielding weapons rather than playing instruments, to gently stroke through Loki’s hair. His eyes were fixed on Loki’s, as though if he tried hard enough he could learn mind reading when even for Loki it was a tiring and tricky art that had involved hours of study.

Loki turned his face slightly, hiding his eyes from Thor but only so that he could touch his lips lightly to Thor’s open palm cupping his face. Like a force of nature unleashed, Thor moved. Like a hunter going for the kill he captured Loki’s lips with his own, kissing him with the pent-up passion of centuries. Loki’s hands went to his hair, short when he had allowed himself to grow accustomed to burying his fingers in glorious long golden locks, pulling him closer, kissing him back as though he was drowning.

Thor pulled back, breathing heavily, eyes afraid but meeting Loki’s nonetheless. Gently he rested his forehead against Loki’s, their noses touching slightly, breath from parted lips mingling. He smiled. “Even better than I ever dreamed,” he whispered.

Loki smiled, pulling him down for another kiss. They had centuries to make up for, battles and betrayals to overwrite with tenderness. 

For want of anything better to do, such as risk conversation that might break the spell of peace fallen between them, Thor leant forward to kiss Loki again, hovering over him as though that gave him a chance to keep the wild unpredictable nature of his brother tamed beneath him. Loki stroked his back through the pyjamas that made an unpleasant barrier between their skin, an encouragement for more. Wrapping them closer together, hot kisses plunging the depths of their feelings. 

Thor gazed lovingly into Loki’s eyes, bashful and enraptured at the same time, as though he didn’t quite know what to feel or believe. Loki lay contentedly in Thor’s arms, his head pillowed on Thor’s bicep just as he done before only not with his Thor. Heat radiating from both of them, too hot under the covers and dressed in pyjamas. Loki let his fingers trace their way down Thor’s body, light fingers burning through Thor’s pyjamas like they were on fire making Thor shiver with their gentle progress to rest by his hips.

“Loki,” Thor said, breathless and infatuated. He leant in for another kiss, as though he simply couldn’t resist. “I… I haven’t ever… Not with a man…”

Loki closed his eyes briefly, reaching inside himself to the deep wells of magic that ran through every part of his body. She opened her eyes again, smiling softly. “More to your tastes?” she asked.

“You don’t have to change yourself for me,” Thor protested, hurt, drawing back from her. “I meant I have limited experience. I don’t want to disappoint you. I like you the way you really are.”

“This is me?” Loki answered, confused. She blinked up at him in confusion, frowning. “I am still me. This is as much the real me as the brother you’ve always known.”

Thor pursed his lips slightly, as though it was something he didn’t himself entirely understand but wanted to at least try believing Loki despite that, especially now that they were reconnecting honestly, being truthful about long-hidden secrets carried long in their heats. He couldn’t quite help admiring the female form beside him, beautiful and as utterly Loki as the one he was used to.

“Besides,” Loki said softly, biting her lip, “Neither of them are really the real me. I’m not really æsir.”

The silence stretched out for a phase, a truth they often chose to forget as though it could be masked with illusions and lies. “Show me?” Thor asked, gentle and curious.

Slowly, reluctantly, Loki reached deep inside herself for the small blue icicle that lived deep in her centre. The part she ignored and liked to pretend didn’t exist. He opened his eyes reluctantly, not really wanting to see the reaction on Thor’s face but not able to look away.

Thor didn’t flinch, and for that Loki was grateful. Instead he looked steadily at Loki’s face, taking in the change. Adjusting. Adding the new face to his understanding of who Loki was. A truth, when truth was the antithesis of all that Loki was. 

“It seems strange to think of you with different coloured eyes,” Thor admitted after a lengthy pause.

“Everything is different,” Loki protested incredulously.

“Yes,” Thor acknowledged, “A bit different but just as beautiful. And I knew that all jotnar had red eyes so I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’ve spent so long thinking about your eyes being green that’s all.” He reached out a hand to gently run his fingers along Loki’s cheekbones and down his jaw. “That’s all the same,” he said thoughtfully, “Different skin but covering the same bones. Still the same Loki.”

Loki was quiet. There were feelings, far more than he really wanted to think about but at the same time he was trying honesty. He wasn’t sure if it was a good fit for him, just as he wasn’t sure if his true form was a good fit for him. Just as now that they were lying face to face he wasn’t sure if he and Thor were truly a good fit for each other, if they wouldn’t just be the way they always had been, a destructive maelstrom that laid waste to all around them. 

“I thought you hated all jotnar and wanted to kill each and every one of them,” he said eventually. Honesty. The blunt confrontation of what had been. Of the fear that had gripped him once upon a time. Of the memories of a childhood that seemed worse each time he reflected upon it.

Thor flinched back as though stuck with a fierce blow, gravely wounded. In need of his brother’s magical defence whether he realised it or not, a gentle barrier and a desperate healing spell. He gritted his teeth, forged anew with tragedy and hardships. With a brief life on Midgard, with friends so different from him. Able to face the past, to cope with Loki’s honesty just as he coped with the beautiful lies. “I did,” he acknowledged, giving no excuse. There was none, just as there was no denial. “I’ve changed,” was all he could say.

Tentatively, as though afraid of rejection despite Loki’s repeated returns, he let his fingers stroke softly along Loki’s cheek, unfamiliar skin that was familiar at the same time. His vision blurred with tears that he wouldn’t shed, as they were not tears of grief but selfish tears of guilt and regret, of self-reflection that made it about him when he wanted to focus on Loki, on the hurt that had come from Loki being raised in a society that had so openly hated the jotnar.

His uncertain but longing touch lingered on Loki’s lips, as though wondering if he had lost any right to kiss them even though he felt that he should have known that Loki’s memory would be long. Loki had always had an impeccable recollection for slights.

Loki’s tongue darted out, as fast and skilled in action as it was with spinning the most elaborate of tales, capturing Thor’s fingers just as it had captured his mind, his heart. His everything. Whatever it was that Loki wanted, Loki had it.

Buoyed on by the guidance of the teasing tongue, Thor shifted and took courage, leaning forward to kiss Loki. To savour the difference of different lips even though he had kissed them only moments before when Loki was in a different form. Different and the same, just as Loki always was. Confusing and impossible to understand but Thor couldn’t imagine him any other way. Lips as cool as his skin had been, adjusted to the room temperature rather than the consistent heat of an æsir. Something that made far more sense for Loki, who was always in flux even if the core of him was always eternally Loki.

“I was afraid you’d be disgusted,” Loki admitted quietly as Thor almost reluctantly drew back from the kiss, something starting to heal deep within. A fear carried long beginning to dissipate as he lay beside Thor in his true skin, finally beginning to feel like it could one day be a form he felt comfortable in. A form that he felt like his true self in, even as he knew that it was the truest of all his selves, it was still the one he flinched away from, lessons learnt far too long ago to easily undo. 

“So was I,” Thor said, open and honest. Leaving no doubt his intentions or the truth of his reaction. “Afraid of hurting you. Afraid that I haven’t truly changed, that it’s all there under the surface no matter what I might try to tell myself. But all I see is you.”

Loki struggled to find something to say in response. Part of him wanted to switch forms again, back to the false skin that was more comfortable, the lie that was so reassuringly constant that it felt like the truth. Part of him wanted to continue to bathe in Thor’s acceptance, letting the reality feel more real. Without really meaning to, he averted his eyes from Thor’s honesty, giving himself time to think. Thor let him, a gentle embrace holding him in the moment and to an extent in his jötunn form, strong fingers tracing their way along his jawline almost reverently to run their way through his hair.

It wasn’t in any way how he had pictured their reunion going, and he knew that Thor felt the same. It was one of the many unspoken truths of their lives, kept hidden away, but now they were lying side by side, aiming for honesty even if it went against everything that had been the foundations of their relationship before that moment.

There was a limit to how much soul-baring Loki could cope with, so he kissed Thor again. It seemed like a very effective way of both distracting him and keeping him from speaking, meaning that Loki has been very remiss in his youth for not having realised so sooner as with hindsight plenty of issues could probably have been avoided by simply kissing Thor. It probably would have led to some other issues to replace those it solved, but Loki didn’t want to think too hard. It was better to concentrate on their bodies, on physical hardness over mental torment. 

Thor kissed him back with enthusiasm, eager to run his hands along Loki’s body, feeling the unfamiliar skin that he had been raised to loathe. Sighing in contented bliss as though there was nothing better than his current position even as he knew that in what only a few brief years earlier it would have filled him with horror. He slipped a hand up Loki’s shirt, feeling the familiar muscles of Loki’s back under his hands, enjoying the sensation of being able to caress the skin even if it wasn’t the skin he had longed to touch. It was still Loki and he had always known that Loki was full of surprises.

“I’d be able to explore more of you if you magicked our clothes away,” Thor said boldly, not certain if he was crossing a boundary he shouldn’t but confident that Loki would forgive his eagerness. His delight at having Loki returned once more to him coupled with an avalanche of desire that seemed too precious, to precarious to risk on hesitation when at any moment death or circumstances could tear them apart again. When a part of him feared that Loki would vanish away with the dawn, whether due to it all being a dream or Loki simply being Loki.

Loki hesitated, cautious and uncertain where Thor was bold and brave. Wanting nothing more to revel in his magic and unravel the clothing that kept them apart even as he felt fear of the complications that lay between them. The sense of falling too fast just as he has fallen from the Bifrost combined with the pain of centuries of delay. The newness of his body, the differences of their skins from his memories of not so long ago, in another lifetime and another reality that he was not seeking to recreate but rather draw his inspiration from.

Thor shifted, awkwardly accepting the rejection Loki hadn’t given to alter their position to a soft hug just as they had hugged when they were children, only then Loki had never felt the hardness of Thor’s arousal brushing against him through fabric that served little purpose.

He’d always alternated between immaculate plans perfectly orchestrated and acting out on impulse, safe in the knowledge that no one could ever tell the difference between the two. He indulged in his magic, unused in the alternative reality without magic, vanishing their clothing away with a challenging smile, daring Thor as though it was just the way it always had been with him egging Thor on to increasingly bad decisions. As always Thor took his bait, thought with his body not his brain, pulling Loki flush against him for another ravishing kiss. 

Loki smiled into the sensation. It felt as though Thor could kiss him back to life, cement him in the reality, as well as fuck him into his jötunn form, making it as much of him as any other skin he had covered his bones with.

Thor clung to him as though through the medium of the flesh he could express everything that could never be said with words. Not when they used them so differently, twisting meaning through lenses of misunderstandings, silences misinterpreted, incompatible codes of the All-Tongue that shared a grammar but not a vocabulary. As though he could wipe away all of his grief that had endured through three periods of mourning, all the regret of what had been washed away to show a hint of hope, honesty dressed in blue. Driven by a fear of loss, knowing how easy it was for everything to slip through his hands. For all that he held dear to crumble to ash. Worlds burning and lives stolen, every moment fragile.

Loki’s hands, nimble and clever, traced their way across his body, fingers moving confidently downwards to his ass like his magic had sought out its target without mercy. Tendrils always honing in and seeking out weaknesses, finding the cracks to split open his enemies, leaving them broken and humiliated. Pawns in his game.

Thor tensed, torn. Temptation warring with the memory of betrayal. Thoughts of positions he’d never considered, roles and their meaning. 

Loki froze. Gently, he shifted, his hands moving to rest lightly by Thor’s waist. “Sorry,” he murmured, an unfamiliar word spoken with unfamiliar sincerity. A return to Asgard even if Asgard no longer existed, still the culture lingered on inside both of them for all that they’d been touched and tainted by Midgard. Thor with the Avengers, his love of his friends and their home planet, and Loki with his strange drifting memories of the brief moment when he was a mortal on a Midgard that had never known the warfare that had scarred the one they had found each other on.

“This isn’t all a trick, is it?” Thor asked quietly. “Something you will laugh about and hold over me for the rest of eternity?” 

Loki shook his head wordlessly. Softly he reached up to caress Thor’s cheek.

Thor pressed his lips to Loki’s palm, rough beard against tough skin. Did his best to let the irrational fear subside, the images of war prizes and Jotenheim’s final revenge false when he knew Loki to be loyal to no land. He brushed the thoughts aside, turning away from Loki’s hand to kiss him again. To unleash the full force of the storm, only without touching his powers. Just the feelings that bubbled within him, the uncertainty splitting the sky as much as the lust rumbled it’s constant desire.

Loki melted into his passion, kissing him back. His hands, deft and devious, took Thor’s and moved them to his hips. An open invitation.

“Always happy to ride a nice cock,” he said, slipping easily into the role of confident flirt he had played on Asgard before the fall and on Sakaar after the landing. In some ways, the framing worked even if it was a gross oversimplification of a life that had been more complicated than even he himself knew how to explain. “I’ve always been a better rider than you anyway.”

It got a rise out of Thor at least. He had always been good at that, in a multitude of ways even as he was only now exploring some of the ways he could make Thor rise to the occasion. 

“I’m a better rider than you,” Thor said, laughing slightly as his cheeks went pink, offended and amused, knowing they were talking about more than one thing because Loki never used words simply when he could complicate matters.

“You just like to think so,” Loki said fiercely. “You could have been as good a rider as me had you put in the effort but you aren’t. You always just replied on mjölnir and deep down you know it.”

Thor wrinkled his nose, the words hurting not so much for the criticism but the reminder of the loss of mjönlir that still stung even if he knew there was no harm meant in Loki’s words. He remembered Loki, always elegant when riding a horse, able to charm them in ways that he had never understood. Able to charm even Sleipnir who had hated all but Odin, and for some reason Loki. “Then maybe I should take your advice and… practice…” Thor said slowly. With a deep sigh, he looked at him. Cautiously, he shifted Loki’s hands back to where they had been, resting slightly awkwardly on his ass muscles. “Does the other Thor like this?” he asked curiously.

“Yes,” Loki said.

“Then I want to try.”

Loki let his finger trail gently across Thor’s skin, resting gently by his hip bones with a slightly resigned sigh. “What has happened since I’ve been gone?” he mused, before cutting Thor off abruptly, “No, don’t answer that. Not now. Later. A conversation for the day. First I’m going to make you feel good.”

With a demonstration of strength that only truly worked because Thor was not expecting it and didn’t fight it, he moved away from the embrace to push Thor down onto his front.

Thor tensed slightly, wary of the treacherous snake he adored having easy access to his back. A vulnerable position. He tensed more when Loki’s hands made contact, finding their way to his shoulders, and then began to relax as Loki massaged coiled muscles as though his touch was made of magic. 

Softly he moaned, doing his best to muffle the sound in the pillow. He could hear Loki’s faint laughter, not mocking or cruel but filled with loving affection. He felt Loki’s breath against his neck as he felt Loki whisper into his ear, “No sounds will leave this room. Trust my magic.”

Slowly, as though drawing out the torture of the act, Loki worked his way down Thor’s back. Thor could feel the stress of the last few years fall away, as though he was being enchanted and renewed, all to the accompaniment of Loki’s gentle murmurings. By the time Loki’s hands made their way to his hips, he felt like he could melt into the bed. As Loki continued downwards, massaging and stroking his ass Thor just moaned freely, his hips undulating slightly, turning his face from his pillow so he could catch a glimpse of Loki behind him even if the horned figure should be a product of his nightmares.

The monster he no longer saw as a monster was gone, replaced with the brother he had always known. Red eyes back to green, blue skin faded to an almost painfully pale cream. A strangely tender expression on a face that had always been sparkling mischief that had for a brief while been twisted and contorted into hatred.

He turned, pulling Loki down on top of him into a hug that should have begun centuries ago. Back in the embers of their parting, of love before it corrupted. Loki melted into his arms, his smooth cheek resting against Thor’s.

“You don’t have to change,” Thor whispered into his hair. “I’ll love you jötunn face as much as I love your æsir one.”

“One day,” Loki said softly. “One day. Maybe tomorrow. But I have never been the god of honesty and it is less of a homecoming when I wear that face.”

The hint of a promise of the future captured Thor, warming his heart, running along the cracks from all the times it had broken, still weak and liable to crumble should Loki chose to crush it. Tenderly he kissed familiar lips even if he had never kissed them in their youth he had still known them. The brother he had watched grow up even if the face had turned out to be a false one was still his brother. He was just more than that as well. 

Loki’s fingers returned to their stroking, seemingly everywhere as they caressed his body and returned to where they had been making themselves at home in his ass. Thor pulled him closer, moaning softly as Loki’s fingers also tangled in his short hair, before pausing. Deliberately, he concentrated on the manner in which Loki was clearly cradling his head in his hands, whilst also using his hands for other purposes if his sense of feeling was also correct.

Loki blinked at him for a brief moment. “Magic.”

Thor chuckled slightly, not really sure if he should be surprised when everything about Loki was saturated in magic. It was his true form and nature, the truth of his blood, far more than the details of his species or parentage. 

They fit together awkwardly but perfectly, tangled together closer than necessary to inhibit free movement but to maximise contact. Thor’s world was filled with the sense of Loki, feeling him all through his body as his face took up all of his line of sight and the overwhelming love threatened to burst free from his heart as though it was too much to simply be contained within one body though that was no longer a concern as they were combined.

The idea that Asgard was a people not a place had been something to cling on to in the destruction of Ragnarök, quickly shattered by the despair of the loss of so many of those very people including the cornerstone of his existence leaving nothing but a sense of a never-ending battle that all warriors must face. Now it made sense again, filled him with hope and inspiration. Even if Loki wasn’t always of Asgard in the same way others were, he was still a part of it. A vital piece of the fabric of reality that help everything together, whether it was immediately visible or not.

It was good to not have to be the leader, the one with all the responsibility that weighed him down now that he had had to shoulder the crown only to see everything destroyed mere moments later. Even if Loki so often gave the impression of expecting to be kept in the lap of luxury, of landing on his feet no matter what and simply being worshipped for existing, Thor had always known that that level of effortless charm took true skill. That there was hard work and precise expertise guiding every laconic gesture, and Thor appreciated his talents in a way that he hadn’t been able to fully when he was younger. Maybe, he was aware, had he been exposed to them in a more personal manner involving Loki demonstrating them he might have learnt to love them sooner, but the past was the past.

It helped that while Loki might never have had sex with his Thor before he had had the experience in another world. It acted as a guide, allowing him to predict with even greater accuracy, exactly how to move to elicit the deepest moans, the most delectable gasps. It felt right to move slowly, dragging out the moments of the remnants of the darkness with the pleasures of the night before the sun would finally spill forth with them and over them.

Thor responded beautifully, like a well-tuned and well-loved cello. The physical had always been his arena just as teasing and tormenting had always been Loki’s. Loki felt home in a way he never had before. In a way that he had only glimpsed at the possibility of being able to feel when he was as far from home as he ever had been, beyond his own Yggdrasil in another universe. Home in a way that transcended the jötunn blood hidden in his veins or his childhood amongst the golden spires of Asgard. Asgard was a people not a place and home too was a person not a place and that person was Thor.

It seemed like before his very eyes the shadows of the night faded from Thor’s face, chased away by the certainty of Loki’s return and the creeping promise of sunrise. The shaky uncertainty of a future where they were brothers and not, but both alive with each other. It soothed his ego to hear Thor groan throatily under his ministrations, both a testament to his talents and also a show of trust for his silencing spell, a demonstration that the bridges they had begun to rebuild would hold fast regardless of the death that had interfered with the construction. The foundations were firm, deeper than either of them had truly allowed themselves to consider. As deep as they were connected, moving as one, coming together.

Slowly they stilled, still wrapped up in each other’s arms, as though loathe to ever separate. Loki knew that he had found where he belonged, even for one such as him who could never truly belong anywhere. He could adapt to everything, could wear any face needed, as long as it was with Thor who could see the hints of truth hidden deeper than even Heimdall’s eyes had been able to see. 

Thor held him close as though he was precious. As though he was loved, and Loki could believe it to be the truth. An embrace that managed to convey what the one after Ragnarök had began to unravel, only that destruction had not been enough more death had been needed, blood sacrifice to cauterise the wounds of the heart and allow the flowers of love to bloom.

Loki let his magic clean them, as fire had cleansed them and death had cleansed him, quietly enjoying the sensation of being alive again, his power as it should be. Enjoying the feeling of Thor’s heart thumping loudly enough that he could hear it echoing. Enjoying the way that Thor was stroking his fingers through his hair, gentle and tender.

With another flick of magic, Loki opened the curtains, letting down the barriers that kept them isolated, inviting the day to begin at its leisure. Letting the illusion of time resume. 

“There’s a lot that needs to be said,” Thor commented, almost reluctantly. Unwilling to move, unwilling to shatter the fragile truce that held them comfortably together. Unwilling to return to warfare when there was the option of peace.

“There’s still more that needs to be heard,” Loki countered, acknowledging the difficulties that would lie ahead. “But we will have time for that, and we will face it together.”

Thor kissed him softly, allowing all of his strength to melt into the most gentle of touches. Letting a comfortable silence fall, communicating with skin on skin. He watched the sunlight start to clamber in through the window, something that had served as a cruel reminder every previous morning since Loki had stood before Thanos and proclaimed that the Titan would never be a god.

It bathed them in light, lighting the gold in Thor’s hair and beard, drawing out the full depths of the green of Loki’s eyes. Warming them like snakes on a rock, like jotnar trapped in an eternal winter, like æsir finally seeing the hope of dawn after the end of their world. 

“Told you,” Loki said, as the bed became a flaming funeral pyre of light, burning away grief and anguish to leave love in its wake. A ship to sail to Valhalla one day far in the future when they were done living.


End file.
